Well….have been following the development of hurricane Irma over the past few days and all I can say is cripes…the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded with winds over 185 mph and it is still strengthening…..now, two record breaking hurricanes in the span of two weeks? And another one starting up behind Irma? This is exactly what the climate experts predicted would be the result of climate change…more extreme weather….more storms, more rain, more flooding…more damage…but of course climate change is not real or caused by humans burning fossil fuel if you listen to any repub out there….I wonder what it will take for these idiots to be convinced? Irma is predicted to turn and run up the east coast…maybe a direct hit on DC would do it? Nope, the modern repub is just too damn dumb to learn anything….
Tag Archives: Climate change
The southwest shuts down from the heat….
Well…you’ve seen me talk about the effect that climate change is having on severe weather events here in the US but I have never seen what is happening in the southwest of the country right now. This afternoon, there will be no flights into or out of the southwest due to the record breaking heat that is predicted…from Phoenix to Las Vegas the temps are supposed to be from 120 to 126 degrees which is above the temperature ceiling of all aircraft that fly today. Yep, it is so hot that the entire southwest will be on lockdown this afternoon and the disruption to lives there will be severe….I’ve talked before about the need to not confuse weather with climate, but this extreme weather is driven by the warming climate just as the melting of the Antarctic glaciers is driven by it…and the rivers that are flowing off the glaciers have never been seen in the 100 years that observations have been taken there….so, the next time you hear a climate denier talk just shut them down with these two little facts…I’m an old guy and I’ve never seen a day when it was too hot for planes to fly…but tomorrow starts the summer and I’ll bet it won’t be the last time…..
Ted Cruz is just nuts…
Well…haven’t been feeling too well today so I am getting to this one a little late…but, it is something that I just needed to comment on…that is that Ted Cruz is just nuts…how else do you explain what happened In NH the other day? When asked what he would do about climate change if he is elected, his answer was “nothing”…and then he launched into an 8 minute screed about how climate change is a conspiracy by liberals to expand the government and take away our “freedoms”….now, when I was young and the politics on the right were not so insane, this kind of nonsense would have gotten ole Ted laughed out of the room and the guys in the white coats would have come running with the straightjacket. But, these days, this delusional behavior is a requirement to get their delusional base to vote for them…..if you could see me, you would see me shaking my head with a dejected, resigned look…something like weariness that our country has come to this…geez…
The scariest thing about climate change…
Well…there has been lots of discussion about the effects of climate change like riding seas and growing season changes for crops…but the other day, I read an article about climate change that was the scariest one so far. If we do nothing to limit CO2 emissions and we get the predicted 6 degree rise in temps by the end of the century, one of the most important ocean plants, phytoplankton, will state to die off. Now, this will play havoc with the food chain since phytoplankton is the base for all of the life in the seas…but that is not the scary part, the scary part is that phytoplankton is responsible for almost 50% of the oxygen production on Earth and if they go away, there won’t be enough air left to breathe. Now, how’s that for a direct danger to us from climate change? But, I think that will not be enough for the climate change deniers out there…after all, that’s 85 years away and they will all be dead by then anyway…that’s the way they think…that’s the way conservatives think and I continue to shake my head at the stupidity that is on display every day from these folks…geez…
Circular logic on Climate change…
Well…just read a little article about climate change in Alaska that I just had to comment on since it made me shake my head in disbelief….the governor of Alaska came out in the past few days in favor of accelerated drilling for oil basically everywhere in Alaska…wildlife refuges, offshore, anywhere there may be oil…and your jaw will drop when you hear the reason for this drilling…he wants to drill and burn more oil so that Alaska will have the money to cope with climate change…he said that some villages have to be moved from thawing permafrost and the only way he can see to do that is to make climate change worse…and this is the flaw of not having a national policy on climate change…the states will be left to make the world problem worse to deal with it’s local effects…what a bit of circular logic…and I really am shaking my head…geez…
If you had any doubt..
Well…if you had any doubt about the damage that human activities have had on the environment…beyond global warming…you just have to look at the new study that just came out over the past few days that found that populations of wildlife have declined by 56% on average over the past 40 years…more than half of the world’s wildlife is gone in just 40 years…I’m sure that the climate change deniers will say that it is just “natural variation” and that humans have nothing to do with it…but, deforestation and destruction of habitats to continue to strip mine and harvest dirty energy is a major factor in this decline….but, we won’t learn, after all who cares if there are tigers or elephants left in wild…they just get in the way of the speed of the destruction of the planet…geez…
Can Boehner be this stupid?
Well…I really know the answer to that question but need to get a post out about it so I’ll wait til later to tell you. The latest talking point that the repubs are using to avoid dealing with climate change is just weird…ole Boehner came out the other day and said that he is not a scientist so he can’t discuss climate change or propose legislation about it. Think about that, the new standard for our government, according to the repubs, is that they can’t do anything about any of the country’s problems unless they are experts in the field….and the funny thing is that none of them are economists, either, but they continue to propose failed economic theory to help the economy…you know, the tax cuts for the rich and corporations that have never helped the economy grow or created one job. I truly believe he is so stupid as to propose this…to admit to the country that he’s not too bright so excuse me for not doing my job…a new low, even for the repubs….geez…
It’s cold so there can’t be any global warming…
Well…it has been a day of hibernation with the cold and snow….the wind chill just hit 35 below and that crystallized something I read this morning in the Detroit news…it was actually a comment from some genius who was smugly declaring that there can’t be any global warming since the scientific ship that was studying climate change near Antarctica was stuck in the ice…and of course there shouldn’t be any ice since it is summer in the southern hemisphere. Hence, global warming is all a fraud…I think this just highlights how the right operates only on faith and made up “facts”….first, climate change is a set of changes that are taking place over time; not a single event like the bitter cold that we have here in GR today….to cherry pick “facts” as this idiot did, I could point out that the summer in Australia is the hottest on record…with temps over 125 degrees in places…so, of course the globe is getting hotter…these occurrences are just pieces in the puzzle of climate change…like the drought in California that we are seeing that will have some parts of the state run out of water next year….and the fact that there is so little ice at the north pole now that shipping companies are now plotting to run ships across it to save thousands of miles…so, let’s stop confusing weather with climate for a change…and start getting the facts straight…oh, that’s right, the right doesn’t believe in facts…geez…
Just some musings…
Well…it has been a nice day so far with having a surprise lunch with T…but that’s not what I wanted to talk about…what do I want to talk about? Oh…are Americans getting more stupid every day or have they always been this way? that little question was spurred by an article that I just read saying that the percentage of people that believe in global warming here in the US has jumped by almost 20% since the weather has gone screwy this year…no, I’m not sure if any of these events is a harbinger of climate change; some of it may be but it strikes me that this is like the naysayers who point to blizzards as say “where’s your global warming now?”. Hmmm….oh, I want to deal with the conspiracy theory that says that business won’t hire until Obama is defeated and that is what is driving the poor employment numbers. You may remember that I proposed the same theory a while back (somewhat tongue in cheek), but it was supposed to be taken as comedy….but now, it appears that the idea is getting some traction in the media…I hope not, since it is demand, demand, demand….that drives hiring and until demand increases, or the forecast of demand increases, you would be an idiot to hire anyone…so, let’s keep to the science of economics, not to wild speculation…even if wild speculation is much more fun….